What David Cameron meant to say on tax

Now for the clarification of what we might describe as a weekend leftover. Bear with me. Towards the end of my interview with Patrick McLoughlin last week, he raised his concerns about the state of Tory communications. His point was that the Conservative side of the Government has not been as good as it should be in selling its message to the electorate. "We need to get out there and be much better at communicating what we are doing," he said. He was careful not to single out any particular element, and added an important caveat – that too often dealing with the day-to-day gets in the way of the bigger strategic message (in case you missed it the full interview is here). I suspect he will have been heartened by the vigour with which the leadership has attacked the new year. But I suspect he also recognises that political messaging is often inelegant and incomplete, and relies on a mix of endless repetition, convincing simplicity, and personal credibility. With 16 months still to go, voters have more important things on their plate than the choice they will make in 2015, and will be forgiven for withholding their opinions.

But the one area where the effectiveness of communication can be judged instantly is when party leaders speak. Criticising the machine around the Prime Minister is a long-standing and popular pastime at Westminster. Sometimes it is justified. But in the end the machine is only as good as the material it is working with. Luckily for Craig Oliver and his colleagues, David Cameron is pretty good. But that doesn't save them from the chore of

having to tidy up when he is less than clear. The past few days have produced several examples of the problem. There was the confusion over what he meant about pensioner entitlements. He sounded equivocal about their prospects when asked about them by Andrew Marr, and No10 had to clarify the position, then endure some uncomfortable headlines, notably in the Mail.

What didn't get covered was the subsequent clarification of what he said about tax. You may recall that Mr Cameron, when asked whether he wanted to cut the top rate of tax further, said his priority was to target tax reductions on the poorest. "If we had money we would target money at the poorest paid. They are the ones who need our help. But you can't cut taxes unless you control spending." That was interpreted on the day as a signal that middle class tax cuts are off the agenda, and any further giveaways would be aimed at those at the bottom of the income scale. Not so, it turns out. When I spoke to Team Dave about it, they told me "what he meant to say was people on income below the 45p rate of tax. The idea that he meant just people on low incomes is not the case". If you've read this far then, two conclusions: one, whatever he may have said Mr Cameron still fancies tax cuts for all, presumably particularly those stuck on the 40p rate; two, that if No10 has an occasional communication problem, it is that the Prime Minister is sometimes not as clear as he needs to be on the big questions.